


O Fortune, variable as the moon

by scrollgirl



Category: Dead Zone
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrollgirl/pseuds/scrollgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one bright spot in the tragicomedy that Johnny's life has become is that the two women he loves most in the world had each other to lean on after his accident. AU in which Vera Smith is still alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Fortune, variable as the moon

**Author's Note:**

> Another WIP amnesty fic. Unlikely to be continued.

_O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis_

Johnny wakes from his coma to a strange and frightening new world in which a simple touch results in flashes of other people's lives, of skeletons in their closets and tragedies yet to come. His visions save a child from a burning house and damn Johnny with that same act--damn him to a reality in which he is a freak, a medical mystery.

And so Johnny does what any self-respecting, red-blooded American man would do: he calls for his mother.

When he sees her in the doorway of his hospital room, it's even more difficult to believe six years have passed in one long sleep. His mother hasn't changed at all since Johnny last saw her, the same afternoon he went with Sarah to the carnival--an afternoon his memory insists was only two days ago. The lines on his mother's face haven't deepened; her hair is still dyed a golden brown, perfectly coiffed to frame her face; she wears the same rings, the same watch, the same gold cross around her neck.

But the joy and relief in his mother's eyes, the lifting shadow of grief, are as much proof of lost years as the date on the front of the Cleaves Mills Chronicle, its headline "Gas Explosion Nearly Claims Child's Life".

"My dear, sweet boy. I never should have doubted, I never should have given up hope--" His mother cups his face in her trembling hands, weeping, laughing, overwhelmed with emotion. "It's a miracle, Johnny, a miracle from God!"

"I love you too, Mom," Johnny says, and put his wasted arms around her shoulders, holding on as tight as he can. His mother embraces him in turn, tears dropping from her face to splash against Johnny's neck like _raindrops hitting the windshield of Sarah's car as she drives Vera to visit Johnny at the hospital._

_"Two years ago today," Vera sighs. "It was raining that night too, wasn't it." She looks out at the wet streets, the green and dripping trees silhouetted against grey skies. There's a young couple with an umbrella, splashing in a puddle on the sidewalk. "Sometimes I feel a terrible weight of guilt, Sarah. Here I am, living and working and going about my life while my little boy lies in a hospital bed, year after year."_

_"Oh, Vera, I understand how you feel," Sarah says, reaching over to squeeze her hand. "It's like that for me too. But I have to believe Johnny would want us to be happy."_

_Vera squeezes back, comforted by this young woman who has become her daughter in spirit, if not by the letter of the law. "My dear, I don't know what I would have done without you and little Johnny to keep me going."_

_"Please, I should be thanking you." Sarah shakes her head and smiles. "Taking me in the way you did, helping me through morning sickness and three a.m. feedings? JJ and I are incredibly lucky to have you in our lives."_

_"Like Ruth and Naomi," says Vera, secure in the knowledge of God's provision. "You and JJ are my family now, Sarah."_

Overwhelmed, desperately confused, Johnny draws away from his mother. "Who's JJ, Mom?"

His mother is flustered, her eyes darting nervously around the room. "How could you possibly...?" Then she frowns, her gaze turned toward the door, cracked ajar, and the murmur of medical staff in the hallway moving to and fro. "Dr. Tran promised to let me break the news to you myself."

"Mom, answer me," Johnny says, pushing himself further up against the head of his bed. "Who is JJ?"

Bowing her head, his mother presses her clasped hands to her lips for a long moment. "He's your son, Johnny," she finally says in a quavering voice. "Yours and Sarah's. She gave birth to him nine months after your car accident."

Her words seem to suck all the oxygen from the room, and Johnny has to close his eyes for a moment, suddenly light-headed. "A son? I have a son?"

His mother nods, smiling through her distress. "He's such a sweet, darling boy. So very thoughtful and curious, just like you were at his age."

Little Johnny, she'd said. JJ. He must be five years old now, five and a half, a curious and energetic child. Old enough for kindergarten. Old enough to ask questions. "Does he know?"

She cups his face again, though thankfully her touch does not trigger another vision. "Oh, Johnny, of course he knows who you are. Sarah brings him to visit you every couple of months; she's even explained that you were in an accident and got very badly hurt, and that's why you were in a coma." She leans over Johnny's shoulder to where kiddie artwork is taped to the wall and, with an outstretched arm, carefully pulls one of the paintings down and shows it to him. "He painted this for you for your birthday."

It's a picture of a family, only slightly more evolved than stick-figures: Sarah with brown hair, two blue dots for eyes, a purple dress, and a guitar at her side; a smaller figure with yellow hair, blue eyes, wearing a red t-shirt, holding a hockey stick; a third figure, a man in a green shirt with a brown face, two black dots for eyes, long lines of black hair, with a barbell lifted above his head.

In the blank background behind the family is a big rectangular box with an H on top, and inside lying on a bed is a man with yellow hair and two black semicircles for eyes closed in sleep.

This is how his son sees him: Sleeping Beauty trapped in his sterile castle.

"Who's the other guy?" Johnny asks, though he already knows the answer. Six years is a long time to wait.

His mother takes the painting back and studies it, her expression fond. "His name is Bruce Lewis. He's a physical therapist here at the hospital, which is how Sarah met him." She looks up and presses her hand to Johnny's chest, to connect with him, to calm him. "I know how much you love Sarah, and how much she loved you-- _still_ loves you. But she had to move on, Johnny; I hope you can understand that."

He nods slowly, feeling numb, whited-out. What is there to say? Of course Sarah had to move on. Of course she shouldn't have been chained to a vegetable for the rest of her life, never able to fully live and be loved like Johnny had wanted to love her when he'd put that silly plastic ring on her finger.

"Ask Sarah..." Johnny drops his head back on his pillows, unable to stand the sympathy in his mother's eyes, the way she's hurting for him. "Ask her to come see me. If she wants."

+++

Sarah arrives later that day, as beautiful as ever, and Johnny's heart leaps in his chest at the sight of her beloved face. She greets him with a tremulous smile, her left hand clasped tight in her right, as though to hide the plain gold band on her left ring finger.

"Let's get out of here," he says, desperate for the cool afternoon breeze outside and the privacy of the garden, and so Sarah pushes his wheelchair down the hill to a park bench shielded by a maple hedgerow. "You look good, Sarah." He tugs at the zipper of his hoodie, painfully aware that his body is so different from what she knew six years ago. He's pale, feeble, scarred. Unnatural.

"You look good, too, Johnny," and the challenging glint in her eyes reminds him that she knows him all too well, and has never let him get away with anything before. She stops fidgeting and visibly relaxes, her uncertainty falling from her shoulders like a shawl, having come to some kind of decision. "I've missed you," Sarah whispers, with no preamble, her smile turning warmer and sadder. "God, Johnny, I've missed you so much."

She takes his right hand in hers, gripping tightly. Around her, the park melts into a cozy living room, squishy pillows on the couch, potted plants on the window sill, little kid toys scattered on the ground: it's a vision of her home life blurring with the reality of her body seated on the park bench. Johnny tries not to react, tries to keep his eyes focused on Sarah, unwilling to be distracted. It's been so long since he's seen her, two days and a lifetime ago, and he looks his fill, soaks her in like the desert drinks in rain.

Once she leaves here today, he'll never see his Sarah again, never be her Johnny again, and it's killing him, it's killing him that everything they wanted, their future together, is gone. Has _been_ gone for six years, and he's only just finding out.

Fate is a bitch.

"Tell me about your family, Sarah," he asks, his voice low and gentle, to make this easier for her, if such a thing is even possible. "Mom said that you're married now."

She squeezes his hand again, and looks at him with so much love in her eyes that he can hardly bear it. "His name is Bruce Lewis. I met him four years ago here at the hospital." Behind her, Johnny sees Bruce zoom into the living room with little Johnny under his arm, tucked close like a squirming football, then the two of them collapsing onto the couch next to Sarah in gales of laughter. "We became friends, and then eventually we became more. It wasn't something we were looking for--I wasn't his type any more than he was mine--but we fell in love anyway."

In the vision, Bruce curves his arms around Sarah and nuzzles her cheek. "Let me take you out for dinner before the music festival," he says, his eyes warm and adoring as he gazes at his wife. "Vera's been wanting us to let JJ stay overnight--we might as well take advantage." He waggles his eyebrows lasciviously, ridiculously.

"Say yes, Mom!" little Johnny exclaims, leaning against her knee. "I wanna stay with Grandma!"

Johnny averts his eyes from the easy affection between the three of them. "He's good to you?"

"He's a wonderful husband," says Sarah, her smile turning inward, secret. "And a wonderful father to JJ." When she focuses on Johnny again, he can almost see the light inside her dimming, shaded by old grief and bittersweet memories, and it pains him that he's the source of so much misery in her life when all he's ever wanted was for her to be happy.

"Does he make you laugh, Sarah?" he asks, forcing the words out even though it _hurts_ , like broken glass in his mouth. But it's worth it to see Sarah's lips curve up, the sparkle of tears in her blue eyes dashed away by the back of her hand.

"Yeah, he makes me laugh. A lot, actually." She gives him an embarrassed grin, almost shy, and lets go of Johnny's hand. The vision of her house fades away. "He's a big joker, like you were. Are. I think that's what drew me to him in the first place."

Johnny doesn't want to hear this. "And little Johnny? Tell me about him, Sarah."

"He just started kindergarten at Cleaves Mills Elementary. He plays soccer and, um, he plays hockey, too," and for a moment, Sarah's voice stutters before she steadies it and continues. "Defence, like you. God, Johnny, he looks _so much_ like you when you were a kid. Your mom just dotes on him. Spoils him rotten, but I guess... she's earned it." She laughs, shrugs. "You have no idea how amazing your mom was when I was pregnant with JJ. I was so scared--of the future, raising a child on my own--but your mom was a rock."

"I'm really glad," Johnny says softly, holding her gaze, trying to say everything he's feeling without words. "I can't imagine what it must have been like for you and for Mom." That's not strictly true. He's never lost his only child and he's never lost his fiancé, except that he _has_ , after all, and he's about to learn a different definition of bereavement.

But if there's one bright spot in the tragicomedy his life has become, it's that the two women he loves more than the world itself had each other to lean on in the difficult days after his accident. He's grateful that they are closer now than ever before. That they weren't alone in their grief.

Sarah stares at her hands in her lap for a moment, girding herself to ask him something. He can always tell when she's about to ask for a favour. "Johnny, I told you that Bruce is a physical therapist, right? Dr. Tran has asked him to facilitate your rehab--he's the best match for you, physically and personality-wise. I know it'll be awkward at first, but... Will you give Bruce a chance?"

"Sarah, God, that's... I don't think that's a good idea," says Johnny, a note of horror in his voice, appalled that she would even suggest it. It'd be a nightmare, even without his visions. "No offence to Bruce--I'm sure he's great. But there's got to be another physical therapist I can work with."

Leaning forward with her hands clasped under her chin, Sarah gives Johnny her very best 'oh, is that what you think?' _look_.

Johnny sighs. "One session. We'll see how it goes."

+++

Bruce turns out to be a really nice guy--funny, friendly, not pushy except for how he keeps Johnny on his feet long after Johnny is ready to collapse in his wheelchair. Conveniently, Bruce has already heard the rumours flying around the hospital about Johnny's new super-power and about saving Elaine's daughter from a fire, which means he doesn't take it personally when Johnny declines to shake his hand. Of course, there's still the small problem of how Johnny will manage physical therapy when Bruce isn't allowed to catch him when he inevitably loses his balance or to physically guide him through exercises.

"C'mon, Big John. I give one heck of a deep tissue massage," says Bruce enticingly, wiggling his fingers.

"Appreciate the offer," Johnny pants, wiping sweat off his face and neck with a towel, "but I'll pass, thanks." A massage sounds like heaven, actually, after the session they've had, but considering Bruce handing a bottle of water to Johnny had sparked a vision of Bruce and Sarah making dinner together in their kitchen, the spaghetti boiling over on the stove as they're distracted by a friendly kiss that lingers and grows heated, it's probably safer and saner for everyone concerned to keep their hands to themselves.

Still, despite Johnny stubbornly refusing Bruce's helping hand whenever he lands on his stupid ass, the two of them find a way to make it work and have already settled into a routine by the end of their first session. Sarah swings by as they're finishing up, and when she raises expectant eyebrows at them both, Johnny gives in with relatively good grace and officially hires Bruce as his physical therapist.

"You don't have to hire me just because Sarah tells you to," says Bruce, with a half-scolding, half-teasing frown for his wife.

Johnny shrugs, unable to explain to a guy he's only just met, even if that guy _is_ Sarah's husband, that Sarah truly does know Johnny better than anyone else in the world and truly does know what's best for him. "I like your style," he says simply. "I want to hire you."

"Well, okay then," Bruce says, grinning. "I'll work up a schedule."

"Wonderful!" Sarah exclaims, apparently happy and relieved that her two men were getting along so well. "Trust me, Johnny." She's practically beaming, her bright smile warming the bare, green-tinted hospital walls. "You're in good hands with Bruce."

Johnny has learned to never doubt Sarah when she makes pronouncements like that: she's no psychic, but her fierce belief in the people she loves somehow inspires them to live up to her expectations.

Time passes. Sarah and his mom visit him on alternate afternoons, one of them staying at home with JJ while the other wheels Johnny around the hospital garden. On Saturdays, they visit him together and bring JJ, red-faced and grass-stained from Little League practice and brimming over with childish exuberance. Every morning he works on his physical therapy with Bruce, the two men finding easy conversation that elides any mention of Sarah or JJ. Bruce is full of friendly gossip about the nurses and doctors in the hospital, and success stories about his patients. He updates Johnny on current events, everything that's happened in sports and politics and wars in the past six years.

It's life, slow and steady and the same, and if Johnny sometimes wakes from nightmares in the pre-dawn dark and rages silently at the cosmos for stealing his family, his health, his _life_ , then that's between him and God and the four walls of his private room.

Nothing happens and nothing happens and then September 11th happens. The entire hospital clusters around televisions to watch in shock and horror.

"No," Johnny whispers when Sarah asks. "I didn't see it coming."

+++

Walt hangs back in the doorway of his office and observes Frank take a statement from the two guys claiming to know something about the strangler case. The white guy says his name is John Smith, which is amateur and plain insulting, like he couldn't be bothered to put effort into a believable alias, and the black guy is spouting off about his buddy's psychic powers and saving babies from burning buildings and dead mothers who aren't really dead.

The hell of it is, tabloids love this kind of crap--psychics and people resurrected from the dead sell almost as much copy as celebrity gossip--and while Dana Bright works for a respectable newspaper, Walt knows she enjoys sensationalism as much as the next crime reporter. Yeah, she's already looking over at the two men with an all too familiar gleam in her eyes. He'd better get over there before she turns a couple of attention-seeking assholes into front page news.

"I'm Sheriff Bannerman," he introduces himself, walking over to Frank's desk. "Is there something I can help you gentlemen with?" However much it pains him, he can't afford to turn these guys away if there's the slightest chance they have information he can use.

The two guys stand up and Walt looks them over and files away the details: both over six feet, early thirties, nice clothes, a bit damp but no surprise with the rain outside. The black guy has dreads and a beard. The white guy is clean-shaven and uses a cane. He's got really blue eyes.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy," the black guy is saying, "but he really is psychic."

"Uh-huh," Walt says.

Of course, Dana takes the opportunity to insinuate herself between him and the two whack-jobs. "Dana Bright, Bangor Daily News, Mr. Smith." She holds out a hand for him to shake, but he only stares at her askance. Dana keeps going, not even fazed. "Mr. Smith, are you saying you can help the Sheriff's Department catch the strangler?"

"Don't answer that," Walt interrupts. "Let's go in my office." He waves Smith and his buddy ahead of him, then glares at Dana. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

Dana arches her eyebrows. "No."

"Piece of advice," Walt says as soon as his office door is closed. He doesn't invite them to take a seat. "The media is not your friend. Unless, of course, you're here _looking_ for publicity." He gives both men a hard stare, but neither flinches.

"I'm just trying to save someone's life," says Smith finally.

"And I'm just trying to make sure my county doesn't turn into a three-ring circus," Walt shoots back.

"Please, Sheriff, hear us out." The other guy steps forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Smith. "Our friend, Allison Connover--nobody's been able to get in touch with her all night. No one knows where she is. And Johnny had a vision of this guy, the strangler--"

Walt sighs. So maybe not whack-jobs after all, just worried friends; well, one worried friend and one possible charlatan. "Look, Mister..."

"Lewis," the guy says. "Bruce Lewis. Allison is a co-worker of mine at the hospital."

"Look, Mr. Lewis, it's like Deputy Dodd said. We have your missing persons report, but unless we have proof of a crime or there's some kind of medical emergency, there are other priorities." He holds up a hand when Lewis opens his mouth to protest. "And no, Mr. Smith having a psychic vision does not count as proof of a crime." He lets his hand drop, then adds, "You know, the majority of people reported missing come back on their own. Maybe your friend took a weekend trip without telling anyone."

"Sheriff, I know what I saw. If you don't want to believe me, there's nothing I can do about it." Smith leans forward on his cane, his gaze electric. There's an intensity about him that has Walt mesmerised. "But when they dig up Allison Connover's body from a shallow grave near a windmill, you're going to have to live with it. We both are."

Smith says it like he believes it and his face never once betrays him. There's genuine worry threaded in his voice and a powerful charisma that draws Walt in like a moth to flame. If the guy's a con, he's a damn good one.

Walt shakes himself, suddenly aware that he's been staring. He needs to get out of here before he starts buying what John Smith is peddling. "Go home, fellas," he says, opening his office door and escorting them out. "I'll have units patrol the neighbourhood overnight. If we turn anything up, I'll give you a call."

"That's it?" Lewis protests, frustrated. Smith doesn't say anything: he simply stares at Walt for a long, silent moment, then nods and turns to go.

Walt watches the two men leave, then looks over to his deputies, who are still snickering under their breaths. "You think that's funny?" he asked his guys. "I'm taking first patrol. You guys get the midnight shift." That shuts up Frank and Roscoe quick enough.

"You're taking tips from Edgar Cayce now, Sheriff?" Dana quips.

Walt rolls his eyes at her. "Eat your doughnut and leave me alone, will ya?"

+++

He spends a quiet, rainy evening patrolling the neighbourhood in which Allison Connover lives; except for a few kids with beers living it up in front of the movie theatre, there's nothing going on that Walt can see. He goes home to his dark apartment at the end of his shift no closer to making up his mind about John Smith. The guy seemed so sincere, so passionate in his desire to help--but come on, a psychic? Walt wasn't born yesterday.

Still, he can't quite shake Smith's intense blue eyes from his mind, and so Walt goes back to the Connover house the next morning. There are three dead women and a murderer terrorising his county, and he's hit a dead-end on every lead so far. What can it hurt?

But when he turns a corner into Allison Connover's backyard, there's Smith in a trance, staring blindly up at the house.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Walt demands, one hand drifting to rest on the butt of his weapon. It's all highly suspicious behaviour, and he wants to kick himself for not considering last night that Smith might be a threat. That he might be the _killer_ , stalking his victim, playing mind games with the cops.

Smith looks over, but it's like he doesn't even see Walt. "He was standing here," he says, sounding far away. "Last night. Watching her."

Walt circles him warily. "Who was watching her?"

"The man with the boots. He was standing right here." He points at the muddy ground to where Walt can clearly see two boot prints that at a quick glance match the prints at the other crime scene. "Steel-toed Navy boots," Smith adds. "Size eleven and a half, narrow."

Walt sucks in a breath. "How do you know that?" Dammit, if one of his guys has been spilling sensitive case details over a pint at the local bar, it could deep-six any chance they have of catching the killer.

"I told you, I see things," says Smith, a bit impatient, like Walt really needs to catch up with the rest of the class.

"And what size boots do _you_ wear, Mr. Smith?" he asks, and _that_ gets Smith's attention. He finally seems to notice that Walt is poised to take him down, that Walt's not buying into this whole fortune-teller routine.

Smith straightens up and taps his cane against his shoes. "Ten, wide."

His shoes do look wider than the prints in the mud, thank God. "You know, right now every other cop in America would be saying you should be my prime suspect," Walt says lightly, not quite fighting his instinct to throw Smith in cuffs, but not trying to be overtly hostile either. "You got an alibi you maybe want to give me?"

Smith laughs shortly. "How about, 'I've been in a coma for six years and only got out of the hospital yesterday'? That work for you, Sheriff?"

There's a good chance Walt needs to get his hearing checked, because he could have sworn Smith just said he'd been in a coma. "Come again?"

"Coma," the man says, amused. "In a vegetative state. You can call the hospital if you don't believe me. Talk to Dr. Tran--he's my primary care physician. Bruce is my physical therapist. Allison Connover was one of my nurses."

Walt wants to pinch himself awake, because what the hell? Did he just step into the Twilight Zone? "Oh, trust me, I'm going to be following up on your story," he says after a long pause. Smith's blue eyes are drilling into him and he turns to examine the house to escape them. It's easy to spot the broken basement window.

"Did you do that?" he asks, and deduces it was from Smith's slight cringe. "That's breaking and entering, Mr. Smith. And now we have an actual crime."

"It's a misdemeanor," Smith brushes it off, unconcerned. "I didn't steal anything." Then he realises what Walt is saying. "Hey, does this mean you're going to investigate?"

It's an effort, but Walt manages to keep his tone even as he orders Smith off the property. "How's that saying go? Yeah. Don't call us, we'll call you."

Smith surrenders peacefully. "I'm going, I'm going." But then he pauses on the front walk and stares hard at one of the bushes, and Walt has to nudge him along with one hand on the small of his back.

"Keep walking," he says, then stops walking _and_ talking, because Smith is spaced out, expression blank, and God, it's creepy as hell, and it only lasts for two seconds but it's long enough that Walt grabs him by both arms in case he decides to keel over.

"Walt?" says Smith, sounding lost and confused and about as freaked out as Walt feels, looking at Walt like he's never seen him before.

"You okay, Smith? Hey, hey, tell me if you're gonna pass out." The guy doesn't reply, he just _stares_ \--oh, right. Coma. Which is almost too bizarre a story to be anything but the truth, though it's possible the man is delusional, a loony-bin escapee. In any case, Walt should probably take him to see a doctor sooner rather than later. "Okay, here we go," and he opens the cruiser's passenger-side door so Smith can sit down, then hands him a bottle of water. "Here, drink this."

"Thanks." Smith pulls out a prescription bottle and pops a pill, followed by a swig of water. Sighing, he leans back against the headrest with his eyes closed. "Sheriff, would you do me a favour and call a taxi? I don't think I'm going to make it home on foot." He's probably telling the truth, Walt decides, considering the way he's massaging his left thigh, lips pressed in a thin line against the pain.

"I can drive you," Walt says abruptly, and carefully shuts the car door on Smith's startled face. "What the _hell_ am I doing," he mutters as he rounds the hood of the car.

Walt gets in and gives Smith a hard glare, cutting off a half-hearted protest about not wanting to be an inconvenience. "Just... drink your water. I want you gone from here and if that means driving you home myself, then that's what I'm gonna do."

Smith obediently sips his water and keeps his mouth shut for the entire car ride, though Walt suspects the silence is due to the pain in his leg more than a sudden desire to co-operate with authorities. Whatever the reason, he's grateful for the space to think.

At best, John Smith is a harmless nobody with too much interest in that new age crap, and at worst--and here's where Walt's paranoia kicks into high gear--he's the strangler and the psychic angle is a way to insert himself into the investigation, just like the FBI profiler warned might happen.

But there's something about Smith that feels... real. That makes Walt want to let down his guard. Of course, at the moment Walt is reluctant to trust his own motivations, given how distracted he is by Smith's blue, blue eyes.

+++

Walt's cruiser winds slowly up Cecil Green Park Road, a street as verdant as its name, with million dollar homes half-hidden behind tall hedges or set back on long, manicured lawns upon which are stood old, stately trees of elm, oak, beech, and pine. Aside from the odd burglary case, Walt has had little reason to frequent this part of town in his role as sheriff; as a private citizen, well, he's had even less occasion to rub elbows with the denizens of Cleaves Mills' wealthiest neighbourhood, and he has no plans to start now.

"Next house on the left," says Smith, pointing to a driveway nearly obscured by greenery and flanked by two stone pillars, each topped by wrought iron lanterns. There's no matching wrought iron gate barring their entrance, however, which is a point in Smith's favour--if Walt were keeping score, which he's not.

"Nice place," he says wryly, taking in the mansion and the gardens and the grounds and the honest to God limousine pulled to the side of the long, curving drive. A chauffeur leans against the bumper, reading a newspaper, cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Smith's mouth twists into scowl and he mutters under his breath, "Oh, wonderful. Purdy's here."

The front door opens and an older man and woman descend the front steps, he tall and hefty, bald and bearded, and she slim and graceful, light brown hair carefully coifed. Walt pegs her as the kind of woman to have a string of pearls around her neck to anxiously clutch. "Johnny?" she calls, and Smith waves at her.

"Look, Sheriff, I know you don't trust me," he says quickly, one eye on the woman as she hurries over. "But my mother has been through enough and she doesn't need an interrogation about my visions. Just talk to the hospital: they've run every brain scan available to modern medicine."

"Give me access to your medical history and it's a deal," says Walt, because he's no more interested in upsetting little old ladies than Smith is. "But if I find out you're lying to me, all bets are off."

"Fair enough." Smith ducks his head with a self-deprecating grin. "I'd offer to shake on it, but that's probably not a good idea." He opens the car door slowly, giving his mother a chance to step back, then struggles to his feet, one hand braced on the dash, the other gripping his cane. Interesting: Smith's mother reaches out to help, then stops herself before touching Smith. Reverend Purdy--Walt recongises him now--stands back and smiles benevolently. 

Walt files it all away for later.

Smith grips the door and finds his feet, then bends down into the car with a polite smile. "Thank you for the ride, Sheriff. I really appreciate it."

"Pleasure's all mine, Mr. Smith," Walt replies, equally polite, not a hint of irony in his voice. He follows the semicircle drive out to the street and resists checking his rear-view mirror to see whether Smith watches him go.

Interviewing the staff at Smith's long-term care facility leaves Walt with more questions than answers. The medical jargon goes right over his head: he merely nods as Dr. Tran shows him image after image of the same baffling brain and explains why a coma patient suddenly waking up after six years is pretty much the scientific equivalent of Lazarus resurrecting from the dead. But Tran's story of reuniting with his long-lost mother and Elaine MacGowan's grateful tears as she praises Johnny Smith for saving her little girl make for a compelling argument.

Their belief is strong, founded on personal experience. Everyone at the hospital is scared for Allison.

"There's something seriously wrong with me," Walt sighs, then radios into base to send a forensics team to her house. There are three dead women on his watch and he's not taking a chance that Allison won't be the fourth.

He calls Smith next.


End file.
